Ecosystem
The software around the chain: what the protocol has shipped, which wallets can actually use it, and how much engineering is going in. A shielded pool is only as real as the wallets that emit transactions for it.
▍Engineering activity
Weekly commits per repository across the core protocol, node and wallet codebases, with contributor and merged-PR counts.
▍Wallet capability matrix
What each wallet can do today. 'Unified' means it hands out unified addresses so senders need not choose a pool.
| Wallet | Platform | Orchard | Ironwood | Unified addr. | Hardware | In-app swaps | Open source | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zodl | iOS · Android | Shipped as Zashi until the January 2026 rebrand, when the wallet team left the Electric Coin Company and continued as ZODL. Shielded by default; first to ship Ironwood sends. | ||||||
| Ywallet | iOS · Android · desktop | Power-user wallet: multi-account, fast warp sync, hardware signing on some platforms. | ||||||
| Nighthawk | iOS · Android | Shielded-first community wallet on an independent codebase. | ||||||
| Zingo | iOS · Android · desktop | Community wallet; Ironwood support still in beta. | ||||||
| Zecwallet Lite | desktop · iOS | Sapling only and barely maintained — not a good choice for new funds. | ||||||
| Keystone | hardware | Air-gapped signing of shielded transactions, paired with a mobile wallet. | ||||||
| Ledger | hardware | Transparent ZEC only; shielded support has never shipped. | ||||||
| Trezor | hardware | Transparent addresses only. | ||||||
| zallet | cli | The node-side wallet that replaced zcashd's built-in one; what exchanges and operators run. | ||||||
| Edge | iOS · Android | Multi-asset wallet with in-app swaps; Sapling receive only. |
▍Upgrade history
Every consensus change, with the block it activated at. These are the vertical markers you see on most charts.
A fresh shielded pool with the fixed circuit baked in, so value can be re-proven as it crosses. Orchard drains through the turnstile into it.
A value-balance flaw in the Orchard proving circuit — present since 2022 and capable of minting counterfeit shielded notes — was disclosed by Shielded Labs and patched under an emergency upgrade. ZEC fell around 38% on the news.
First lockbox disbursement under an upgrade-adopted rule.
Second halving; part of the subsidy now accrues to a consensus-enforced lockbox.
Orchard: a trusted-setup-free pool built on Halo 2, and unified addresses to hide the pool choice.
First halving; founders' reward ends and the ZIP-1014 development fund begins.
Miners can receive rewards directly to shielded addresses; flyclient-friendly headers.
Block time halves to 75 seconds; subsidy halves with it so issuance is unchanged.
Shielded transactions become practical on phones: proofs in seconds, not minutes.
Groundwork for upgrades: versioned transactions, replay protection, expiry heights.
Launch with the Sprout shielded pool and a slow-start subsidy.
GET /api/v1/ecosystem.